Why Don't They Just Allow Drugs And Level The Playing Field?

Is it really fair that one should have to risk their personal health to compete in athletics? No way. And it takes away from the whole idea of sport.

You answered your own question in your last paragraph.

If they allowed drugs people would be putting their health in jeopardy. Not necessarily the elites with the good doctors but those athletes that may experiment on their own could get really hurt.

I guess I find it hard to imagine that serious/gifted/pro/elite athletes would take anything that would jeapordize their health and actually shorten their lives, even for loads and loads of money. Almost by definition, athletes are the most health-conscious people in society. We all want to stay trim and live a long, healthy life. I cannot imagine that any amount of money would cause this number of athletes to NOT care about shortening their lives. I also don't understand how having a doctor would reduce any negative side effects. However, if some of these drugs are safe when prescribed by a doctor, then those instructions could easily be made available to all athletes by some company that wants to make a lot of money (similar to vitamins and supplements available from GNC and similar companies).

There was a famous study that asked athetes if they would take a drug that would guarantee them a gold medal but would take 10 years off their lives.Something like 95% said they would.

Really? That is unbelievable to me.

Anyway, as a side note, are there any performance enhancing drugs that do NOT have long term (negative) health effects? I think those drugs should be allowed.

And, p.s., where can I buy some?? :)

Have you ever heard of Lyle Alzaldo? Florence Griffith Joyner? Ben Johnson? Regina Jacobs? Tim Montgomery? any of the cyclists in their 20s who have just keeled over dead in parking lots and living rooms over the past 18 months?

Geezus, apparently T-Mont was freakin' bionic...5 different steroids, insulin, HgH, testosterone, and EPO. If his coaches knew that this was what was needed for "Project World Record", then they obviously knew something about what it took to achieve the existing world record...come on, PLENTY of athletes have/are sacrificing their health and longevity for short-term athletic success.

The playing field would not be leveled. Other countries would argue that since the US has so many drug companies and is so rich that its athletes would have a decided advantage.

In cycling, the UCI got real upset with USA Cycling when it poured millions into developing the "Superbike" for the 1996 Olympic Games; the UCI even adopted rules that virtually outlawed all bike innovation so the "rich" countries would not have an advantage.

Who cares if people die 10-30-40 years sooner- thats their choice and it only hurts them.

The problem is that its using a substance to cheat your way to performing better than you would be able to otherwise. This is of course the standard and popular morality that many people operate under currently and of course its all relative but its still the way that i feel. Otherwise it becomes the WWF/bobybuilding/weightlifting where everything is basically fake.

btw if i put weightlifting in there wrongly sorry

I think the great thing about running is amateurs can compare their times to elite athletes and you can also compare previous records with todays standards. By taking drugs to improve performance you would completely throw off this standard.

run32 wrote:

I think the great thing about running is amateurs can compare their times to elite athletes and you can also compare previous records with todays standards. By taking drugs to improve performance you would completely throw off this standard.

Amateurs have to work.

Amateurs don't get 7 day a week physio

Amateurs can't drop everything to go warm weather training

Amateurs don't get message after sessions

Amateurs don't spend 3 months at altitude

Amateurs don't spent the rest of the time in altitude tents

Amateurs don't take every legal supplement know to man

I am comparing to the top, top athletes, the Paulas and El Gs of the world, but it will never be a total level playing field even without drugs.

We can't allow drugs, but only because of health reasons. Standards ARE changing... science is the way of the future. Is it "natural" for shot putters to eat 4 pounds of straight ground beef for a meal? Not at all, but science tells us that this can be helpful for them. Are the Mondo tracks developed by chemists costing hundreds of thousands of dollars "natural?" Of course not. The whole "natural" thing is a joke, none of this is natural, and as society advances we have to allow science to come into it. It's still a human running, its not like he has a rocket pack on. To get to the most "natural" state, we'd have to disallow special dieting and even TRAINING in general!

>>Is it really fair that one should have to risk their personal health to compete in athletics? No way. And it takes away from thewhole idea of sport.

What if the drugs were healthy and sport unhealthy.

WADA say they ban drugs that have no unhealhy aspect.

>>Message:

The playing field would not be leveled. Other countries would argue that since the US has so many drug companies and is so rich that its athletes would have a decided advantage.

The west have far more non drug advatages which can't be exported whereas the drugs can.

Does anyone know whether there are any performance enhancing drugs that do not cause negative, long-term health effects?

Someone Special wrote:

Does anyone know whether there are any performance enhancing drugs that do not cause negative, long-term health effects?

If by drugs you mean chemical forumations produced by pharmaceutical corporations, the answer is no. There are non of these that do not cause negative, long-term health effects.

I agree that all drug use should be legalized and, even so, would continue to not take them, though I know of few people who don't. Probably 99% of the people on this message board use various drugs they feel are helpful, and in most cases that are legal.

It would be interesting to have a week long discussion about the benefits of legalizing drugs, getting rid of drug testing, than at the end of this time having a vote to see how many would be in favor of this, or opposed.

>>Does anyone know whether there are any performance enhancing drugs that do not cause negative, long-term health effects.

It is all down to the dose.Remember the vast majority are medicines.So the answer is all of them or none of them.

WADA don't seem to grasp this.

Do you know that water is both an enhancer and dangerous.There is a problem called water intoxication.

There is story of real irony.There was a federal employee that had to give a urine sample .She had shy bladder and the testers insisted she drank water.She did and nearly died with water intoxication.She sued and won.Now they are allowed to give more than 200ml an hour(I think).

zatopek wrote:

There was a famous study that asked athetes if they would take a drug that would guarantee them a gold medal but would take 10 years off their lives.Something like 95% said they would.

Actually I'm pretty sure it wasn't described as taking 10 years off their lives but rather as killing them within 10 years. And still the number of "yes" answers was something over 90%. Incredible.

Great question; I think a major reason many who dope are able to rationalize their behavior is because we have dogmatically just maintained that "doping is bad" without really establishing a well-thought out basis for it.

Sure, the argument for doping control that seems to predominate is a paternalist one. (At least this is better than the worst argument I've ever heard for doping control, which is "them's the rules, live by them"). By banning doping, WADA - or whoever - is watching out for the athletes' health (AND the health of kids that emulate those athletes). Further, injecting, injesting, or smearing strange chemicals is bad for you. And we can't be trusted to keep from hurting ourselves by using them. Fair enough. BUT 1) not all the banned drugs have terrible side effects- long or short term, if used, um, "properly" (a la Ritalin, arguably EPO). In fact, the debate about Ritalin "abuse" is raging in the medical community. Because there is little evidence it's abuse is actually "bad" for you, some are saying we should let anyone and everyone use it.

And 2) we do a ton of stuff to ourselves besides doping that have horrendous long term effects. let's ignore the harmful effects of legal supplements. Besides that, training 130+ miles a week is not "good" for you, I think most doctors would agree to that. Going on a 70% fat diet (as one European training group did) is not "good" for you. Doing a gut busting workout in 110 degree heat that screws up your hypothalamus is not "good" for you. But these things are not banned, or controlled in any fashion. We actually ADMIRE this behavior.

In the end, I think if you are going to sing the paternalist tune about protecting health (in my opinion, there are better ways to argue for doping control, but...), the best you can do is say that our attempts to protect athlete health are noble, but incomplete. We can't stop athletes from ALL the bad things they do to themselves, but this is one thing that we have a decent chance of actually controlling.

That is, we can't watch every athlete everywhere to make sure they are not training in 110 degree heat, say. Runners don't have odometers on their legs that tell us how many miles they ran in a week. But it is accurate/easy/reasonably cheap to run laboratory tests to see if athletes have dangerous chemicals in their system. (Counter argument: our doping control is 1) not that cheap, and 2) not that easy, and 3) not that accurate)

Sorry for the long post, I just think this is an important issue to talk about. Bump.